“What made him crazy?” Guy asked, and after a moment’s hesitancy Maddy replied: “I don’t believe grandma would mind my telling you, though she don’t talk about it much. I only knew it a little while ago. He was disappointed once. He loved a girl very much, and she made him think that she loved him. She was many years younger than Uncle Joseph—about my age at first, and when she grew up she said she was sick of him, because he was so much older. He wouldn’t have felt so badly, if she had not gone straight off and married a rich man who was a great deal older even than Uncle Joseph; that was the hardest part, and he grew crazy at once. It has been so long that he never can be helped, and sometimes grandma talks of bringing him home, as he is perfectly harmless. I suppose it’s wicked, but I most hope she won’t, for it would be terrible to live with a crazy man,” and a chill crept over Maddy, as if there had fallen upon her a foreshadowing of what might yet be. “Mr. Remington,” she continued suddenly, “if you teach me, I can’t, of course, expect three dollars a week. It would not be right.”
“Perfectly right,” he answered. “Your services to Jessie will be worth just as much as ever, so give yourself no trouble on that score.”
He was the best man that ever lived, Maddy thought, and so she told the doctor that afternoon when, as he rode up to Aikenside, she met him out on the lawn before he reached the house.
It did strike the doctor a little comically that one of Guy’s habits should offer to turn school teacher, but Maddy was so glad, that he was glad too, and doubly glad that across the sea there was a Lucy Atherstone. How he wished that she was there now as Mrs. Guy, and he must tell Guy so that very day. Seated in Guy’s library, the opportunity soon occurred, Guy approaching the subject himself by saying:
“Guess, Hal, what crazy project I have just embarked in.”
“I know without guessing; Maddy told me,” and the doctor’s eyebrows were elevated just a little as he crossed his feet upon the window sill and moved his chair so as to have a better view of Maddy and Jessie romping in the grass.
“And so you don’t approve?” was Guy’s next remark, to which the doctor replied:
“Why, yes; it’s a grand thing for her, providing you know enough to teach her; but, Guy, this is a confounded gossiping neighborhood, and folks will talk, I’m afraid.”
“Talk about what!” and Guy bridled up as his independent spirit began to rise, “What harm is there in my doing a generous act to a poor girl like Maddy Clyde? Isn’t she graceful as a kitten, though?” and Guy nodded toward the spot where she was playing.
It annoyed the doctor to have Guy praise Maddy, but he would not show it, and answered calmly: